Not long after the Nannas watched the must see documentary Corals Last Stand, the Environment Minister, Murray Watt, announced Labor’s approval of Woodside’s North West Shelf gas export facility at Karratha, Western Australia.
This fantastic film was introduced by Bella Todd from Greenpeace. It will be on at Marrickville on 1 October. Screenings are listed here or it’s available any time for $7 on Vimeo.
North West Shelf Approval
If you enlarge this map and scroll south you will see Project CERES where Australia’s largest ammonia-urea plant is being built to transform gas into urea, a fertiliser. You will also see Yarra Pilbara, Yarra Pilbara Nitrates, Yara/Orica Technical Ammonium Nitrate. Yarra has a plant to create ammonia for fertilisers and another to make explosive products for the mining industry. To the north of Karratha gas plant is Murujuga National Park.
Labor caved in to Woodside locking in greenhouse gas emissions over the gas facility’s lifetime to 2070. These emissions are “greater than the annual emissions from all sources in the United States, and 13 times greater than Australia’s total annual emissions from all sources. (Australian Conservation Foundation)
Labor’s net zero target is 2050. To reach that goal it’s going to need highly questionable offsets, unproven carbon capture and storage with undersea reservoirs injected with CO2, and/or allusive new technology.
“Watt did not have to consider climate impacts, but rather what damage the extension might do to ancient rock art as well as economic and social matters.” (The Conversation)
However, the fight is not over. Woodside is running out of gas to fill the mega North West Shelf Burrup gas hub to capacity. To do so they need approval to drill for Browse gas at Scott Reef, hence the release of the film Corals Last Stand.
Albanese’s Labor government is a disappointment to Australian voters as it continues to ignore our pleas to protect our climate and Indigenous culture and heritage from fossil fuels.
References:
Green light for gas: North West Shelf gas plant cleared to run until 2070 (The Conversation)
More than 17,500 Australians call on the WA Government to reject Woodside’s Browse gas project for unacceptable threats to Scott Reef. (Environs Kimberley)
Pacific Islands and the right shirt
The PM Anthony Albanese had just returned to Australia from the Pacific Islands Forum when the announcement of the approval was made. He not only wore the wrong shirt one day, but his mission to strengthen security ties with Pacific Island nations was thwarted by Australia’s climate policy and the expansion of fossil fuels.
Unlike our PM at the Pacific Islands Forum, we’ve got the right shirt on. Our message to the PM is – be brave when you know what’s right: Save Scott Reef!
Pacific Islands are disappearing with rising sea levels and islanders have been pleading with Australia for many years to stop fossil fuel mining.
Instead tax payers, not the fossil fuel industry, have promised $100 million for a new Pacific Climate Fund to provide small-scale grants to local communities to help them “better prepare for and withstand the impacts of climate change”. Australia has failed to pledge to the Loss and Damage Fund.
Meanwhile, WA gas exporters make billions of dollars but pay little tax, receive taxpayer subsidies, and only employ a small number of people.
References:
Fossil fuel expansion or Pacific security? Albanese is learning Australia can’t have both The Conversation
WA’s Great Gas Giveaway – The Australia Institute
Call to Action
Sign Greenpeace petition to Save Scott Reef
Help them get to 60,000 – it’s close!
See Corals Last Stand
Don’t miss seeing the stunning 30 minute documentary Corals Last Stand. This incredibly beautiful reef is under threat from Woodside’s Browse Basin gas development. Screenings are listed here or it’s available any time for $7 on Vimeo.
Points to raise with pollies and their staffers:
- The approval of the North West Shelf is ……………………………….
- Do not support the Browse gas project at Scott Reef. Go to a public screening of Corals Last Stand on Thursday 18 September Palace Electric Cinemas, at Law St, Canberra, or send them the link to screening dates or encourage them to organise a screening at parliament house. https://www.coralslaststand.com.au/screenings
- We need environment laws to assess projects on climate harm because current laws are not doing this
- Disappointment with their policies – not much different than the LNP
- Labor has a majority only because Dutton and LNP policies were so bad and even News Corp couldn’t convince people otherwise.
Call the Prime Minister
Call the Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s office in Canberra 02 6277 7700
Talk to the staffers – they will log your call and pass on a message.
If you are in his electorate, call his office in Marrickville and make sure his staff know you are a constituent (02) 9564 3588.
Call your Labor MP
Find phone number here – https://www.nswlabor.org.au/federal_mps
Call Minister for the Environment Senator Murray Watts
Office (07) 5531 1033
Call NSW Labor senators
Tim Ayres (02) 9159 9330
Jenny Mcallister (02) 9719 8100
Deborah O’Neill (02) 4367 4565
Tony Sheldon (02) 9719 1078
Keep all these numbers in your phone so you can quickly call next time a bad decision is made.
More information will be available during the week after experts have had time to analyse how the conditions set by the Federal and Western Australian governments will work.